


Make Your Good Love Known to Me (Or Just Tell Me About Your Day)

by vixwixandtix



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Domestic Fluff, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Self-Discovery, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Stanley Uris Lives, Stress Baking, Therapy, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26716927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vixwixandtix/pseuds/vixwixandtix
Summary: Eddie and Stan live because it’s my fic and I say so.Eddie doesn’t get stabbed in the sewers. He leaves Derry with Richie to go hide out in LA, avoiding Myra until the divorce papers hit the system. Living with Richie resurfaces so many childhood memories, forcing Eddie to realize that everything he’s believed about himself for the past 27 years has been a lie.It’s domestic fluff with a slow burn that's about the y e a r n i n g and the self-discovery. Not exactly a songfic but heavily based on songs found in chapter notes.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	1. Just As It Was

**Author's Note:**

> “And in a few days / I will be there, love  
> Whatever here that’s left of me / is yours just as it was
> 
> Tell me if somehow / some of it remains  
> How long you would wait for me / how long I’ve been away  
> The shape that I’m in now / your shape in the doorway  
> Make your good love known to me / or just tell me about your day
> 
> Just as it was, baby / before the otherness came  
> And I knew its name / the drug, the dark, the light, the flame  
> The highs hit the heights of my baby / and its hold had the fight of my baby  
> And the lights were as bright as my baby / but your love was unmoved"  
> \- As It Was by Hozier

Of course, it had felt like the easiest decision in the world at the time. Surrounded by his childhood best friends and celebrating their victory made the last 27 years seems like a strangely mundane fever dream. Bev had announced that she was leaving her godawful husband and kissed Ben in one breath. Eddie’s heart felt like bursting, and he announced his own divorce before he had even fully considered the idea. He looked directly at Richie when he said it, most curious about his reaction for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom. Richie adjusted his glasses, something intense burning behind his eyes. Before Eddie could begin to pull apart his reaction in his tangled mind, Stan threw his arms around his shoulders and congratulated him.

“Not to break the trend, but I really love my wife, and I can’t wait to see her again,” Stan announced, releasing Eddie. Overdramatic “Aww”s echoed through the group and Ben tossed a wadded-up napkin at Stan’s head, bouncing lightly off his hair.

“You’re all children,” Stan deadpanned.

“Eddie, you gonna go back to New York?” Mike asked, sitting up out of his reclined position on the floor.

Eddie blanked for a moment, the details of life suddenly blindsiding him. _Oh god_ , he’d need a lawyer, somewhere to stay; he should definitely go to counseling and figure out if he was ever actually sick. His mental spiral must have registered on his face because suddenly every Loser within arm’s length reached a hand over to sooth Eddie.

“Eddie, you can call my lawyer. He has contacts in New York, I’m sure he’ll know who to recommend,” Bev said quietly, rubbing her hand over his ankle.

“And if you don’t want to go back the New York, you can come back with me to LA,” Richie offered suddenly, “I have a spare room and everything.”

Eddie looked up at Richie, who looked nervous. Like Eddie would turn down the offer or laugh at him. Eddie hated seeing that look on Richie’s face, especially now that It was gone for good.

“Yeah? How trashed is your apartment, Trashmouth?” Eddie asked with a grin, “You think I’ll be your cleaning service?”

“Eds I am rich and famous, I _have_ a cleaning service,” Richie said, rolling his eyes before leering, “But if you wanted to pick up a French maid outfit, I’ll pay you double what I pay them,” Richie said, wagging his eyebrows.

“Beep beep, asshole,” Eddie snorted, kicking his outstretched foot.

“I am serious, though, Eddie. You can come stay with me for however long you need,” Richie said suddenly leaning forward to grab the ankle of the foot Eddie had just kicked him with. Eddie looked in his eyes and saw that same intense emotion from a moment before.

“Okay,” Eddie said quietly. Once again, the word fell out of his mouth before he thought it through. It felt right, though, like of course he would go stay with Richie and leave his wife. What other way forward would there be?

“Great!” Richie replied enthusiastically and immediately dug out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Eddie asked, half-suspicious.

“Well, first I’m booking us plane tickets to LA, and then I’m checking Amazon for sexy maid costumes. What size are you, Spaghetti, like a medium, small?” Richie replied, not looking up from his phone.

Eddie grabbed the napkin that had bounced off Stan’s head and chucked it at Richie, hitting him squarely on the bridge of his cracked glasses.

* * *

And so it was decided. Stan left first, followed closely by Ben and Bev. Bill was staying with Mike until he had everything in Derry sorted out so that he could finally leave and never look back. After a brief discussion, Eddie decided to go straight to LA with Richie instead of stopping back in New York to tell Myra in person, quit his job, and get whatever possessions mattered to him. Perhaps it was the cowards way out, but Eddie couldn’t help the sinking feeling that he could forget all over again and be stuck in the same terribly unsatisfying life. Richie had simply nodded, looking intensely pleased, and booked the next available flight to LA.

The flight itself was boring enough, Eddie ended up passed out on Richie’s shoulder for the majority of it. He woke up when the pilot announced their descent to Richie’s head laying on top of his own. Eddie briefly considered waking Richie up so he could stretch the crick that had taken up residence in his neck, but ultimately decided that the crick wasn’t as uncomfortable as Richie’s shoulder was comfortable. He drifted back off until the plane touched down.

The airport in LA, however, was another story. All through trying to claim their baggage and getting a taxi back to Richie’s place, random photographers and paparazzi appeared. Richie spotted one well ahead of them to give Eddie a heads up.

“They’re gonna ask a bunch of pushy questions, just don’t say anything. Avoid eye contact if you can,” he muttered, walking faster suddenly. Eddie struggled to keep up.

The swirl of questions and cameras was overwhelming and incredibly strange, but Eddie kept his head down and followed Rich’s lead as best he could. Safe inside the taxi at last, Eddie let out a shuddery breath. He couldn’t help but wish he had his inhaler, even knowing damn well he didn’t need it.

“Sorry man, I really didn’t think there would be anyone here. I guess being a shitty comedian is only newsworthy when you’ve had a public breakdown,” Richie apologized, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He had clearly meant for it to be a joke but the acid in his voice broke through. Eddie wasn’t sure what to say, so he settled for patting Richie on the leg.

* * *

Richie’s little house outside LA _was_ actually clean, although a bit cluttered. It was a two-bedroom, two bath little bungalow with an outdoor seating area and a pretty view out the kitchen window. It was so shockingly suburban and low-key that Eddie stopped in his tracks just inside the front door, causing Richie to crash into him.

“Eds, man, what’s the hold up,” he asked.

“Did we just break into someone else’s house?” Eddie asked, still blocking the door and examining the house quizzically.

“No, asshole, c’mon you can say judgey things about my house _after_ we’re inside and unpacked,” Richie muttered, shoving him through the door.

“Alright, where’s my room?” Eddie asked, scanning the open concept living area/kitchen appreciatively.

“Oh, uh, so, the extra room has just been my office until now, so there isn’t a bed, there’s just a sofa,” Richie rushed through the words, not looking at Eddie, “so you can drop your stuff in my room on the left,” he scratched at his unshaved jaw and gestured to the door on the left.

Eddie turned to look fully at Richie, wordless questions drawing his eyebrows together.

"I mean – you take the bed, I’ll sleep on the sofa,” Richie rushed out, tripping a little over the words.

Eddie felt a weird little swoop in his stomach. Richie unintentionally implying that they could share a bed and then instantly throwing away the possibility gave him a sort of whiplash between emotions, neither of which he could name. Eddie realized he’d been silent for a beat too long.

“No, dude, I’m not throwing you out of your own bed,” he countered quickly with an eye-roll. Something flashed in Richie’s eyes as he adjusted his glasses. “I’ll take the couch,” Eddie finished, watching whatever was had been in Richie’s face dry up.

“Shut _up_ , Kaspbrak,” Richie said tearing his gaze away, “If you sleep on the couch, you will whine about fuckin’ lumbar support or some shit. Sleep in my goddamn bed!”

“ _You_ sleep in your own goddamn bed!” Eddie shouted back, weirdly grateful to return to the continuous pestering arguments he remembered with Richie instead of the sincere softness that had settled around them since they left the sewers.

“Alright, Spagheds how’s this,” Richie said with a certain smugness that Eddie knew could only mean trouble, “whoever goes to sleep first has to take the bed.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to get defensive. Going to sleep early is a healthy habit to have, but whatever. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and he was sure he could stay up late enough to convince Richie to take the bed.

“Okay,” he said petulantly.

“Okay.”

They stared at each other challengingly for another few seconds.

“Do you wanna, like, watch a movie?”

“Sure.”

And so instead of unpacking or anything resembling adult behavior, Richie ordered Thai takeout and they settled into a Netflix binge on the living room couch. The food came and Richie tossed a dumpling at Eddie’s head, so Eddie stole his beer from the coffee table. Richie cracked so many jokes that Eddie couldn’t follow the plot of whatever they were watching, more interested in elbowing Richie in the ribs and getting in a few cracks of his own. Whenever he managed to land a joke, Richie would bark out a laugh so loudly and suddenly that his pierced straight through Eddie’s brain into the thirteen-year-old subconscious part of him that always lived for the moments he could make Richie laugh. In between movies, Richie would suggest that Eddie _must_ be tired and that it was far past his bedtime. Eddie would roll his eyes, steal the remote, and tell Richie to fuck off.

Full of Thai food and beer and the warmth that only joking with an old friend can provide, Eddie did actually feel his eyelids drooping as it neared midnight. Of course he could never admit that to Richie, knowing damn well he’d never let him live it down. More deeply though, he couldn’t stand the idea of Richie opening his home without a second thought and then offering his very own bed. For Richie to sleep on a couch in his own home while _Eddie_ was the stereotypical divorcee going through a midlife crisis was far too much for Eddie to bear. Richie was gonna sleep in his own bed _goddamnit._

“Hey, sleepy Ed,” Richie muttered, kicking him while stifling his own yawn, “You better not be drifting off here, go back to the bedroom.”

They had each drifted to opposite sides of the couch to lean against the armrests, legs stretching out in between them. Eddie could feel one of Richie’s socked feet against his ribs, with his freakishly long legs. Distantly, Eddie thought that there was no way they’d fit in the hammock in the Barrens anymore. Richie barely fit on this couch.

“Go sleep in your own bed, you fuckin’ jackass,” Eddie muttered, kicking him back.

Richie just snorted quietly and picked the next movie.

* * *

Eddie woke up slowly, confused for a solid five minutes until his brain finally caught up to the current moment. His first thought was _CLOWN_ followed shortly by _Richie_ and then _why the fuck does my back hurt so much._ He blinked his eyes open, taking in the sunlit living room and the man laying across him on the couch.

Richie was still asleep, glasses eschew and sliding down his nose. His chin was tucked into his chest, and if Eddie listened close enough he could hear a tiny bit of a snore. Their legs were tangled together under a throw blanket Eddie vaguely remembered being on the back of the couch. The socked foot was still pressed tight to his ribcage, a warm if not vaguely gross reminder that for all Eddie gave up, he still had _this._ Friends who supported him so unconditionally they let him crash at their place and refused to even sleep in their own bed. Eddie had felt so, so alone for 27 years. He picked up his phone from the coffee table, seeing texts already from the other Losers checking in with each other to see how everyone was getting on. The love Eddie felt in that moment was so overwhelming he closed his eyes for a moment against it, not wanting to let tears fall just seconds after waking up. There would be plenty more hours in the day for him to do that.


	2. There is a Softness to Your Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is a softness to your touch / There is a wonder to your ways  
> Don't know / How I feel  
> What's the deal? / Is it real?  
> When's it gonna go down?  
> Can we talk? Can we not?  
> Well I'm here / Won't you tell me right now?  
> And I'll care for you / Oh, careful you  
> Don't know / Should we stay?  
> Should we go? / Should we back it up and turn it around?  
> Take the good with the bad / Still believe we can make it somehow  
> I will care for you / Oh, careful you  
> Careful you”  
> -Careful You by TV on the Radio

Carefully, Eddie extracted himself from the tangle of blanket and legs on the couch to start the day. He was rifling through Richie’s kitchen, mentally writing a grocery list for later on, when a sleepy Richie stumbled into the room. Eddie leaned back against the counter, taking him in. His sweatpants were low on his hips, revealing the waistband of his boxers when he stretched his arms above his head with a yawn. The threadbare t-shirt he was wearing revealed the smattering of dark hair along his stomach with the gesture, and Eddie felt momentarily shattered by the image.

Something in his chest, something he’d kept hidden for years, reared its head. Shaken, Eddie turned away quickly to open up another cabinet.

“Hey Rich, where do you keep your coffee? I was gonna make some…” Eddie was pretty sure he was talking too loud or too fast but he suddenly felt more awake than any cup of coffee could’ve provided. He heard Richie padding up behind him, but before he could turn around he felt Richie’s chest press up against his back. Eddie held his breath as Richie’s right arm stretched above them to grab a can of coffee grounds from the top shelf. It was his left hand, though, that he might as well have strangled Eddie with.

To counterbalance himself, Richie Tozier put his left hand on Eddie Kaspbrak’s hip while his Chest was pressed to Eddie’s Back and Eddie was on _Fire._

_What the fuck whatthefuck what the f uuu ck ?_

“Sorry, Short-stack, put it on the top shelf,” Richie said casually, placing the can on the counter next to Eddie’s elbow. He took a step back, releasing Eddie with a final swoop of his thumb on Eddie’s hip, rucking up his shirt just slightly so that for but a moment his fingers brushed Eddie’s bare skin.

Whatever woke up in Eddie’s chest went absolutely feral.

“Who the _fuck_ are you calling Short-stack?” Eddie swung around and bit out with far more vehemence than the situation called for. He knew he must be bright red but could only desperately hope that Richie would chalk it up to the furious indignation he was going for.

Richie, looking vaguely confused, blinked sleepily at Eddie before saying in an infuriatingly calm voice:

“Well, clearly sleeping on the couch made _someone_ grumpy,” while turning to refill the coffee machine.

Eddie stomped off to find the bathroom before he started screaming for no discernible reason. Looking at himself in the mirror, Eddie forced himself to admit that this strange clawing feeling in his ribcage was not, in fact, new. It had been there for about as long as he’d known Richie. Whenever Richie did or said something particularly infuriating, Eddie would absolutely lose his composure in a way that no one else could quite draw out of him. As he’d gotten older he had noticed that the feeling started popping up even when Richie wasn’t doing anything. Sometimes they’d be sitting in silence and teenage Eddie would look at Richie and that would be all it took. Once glance at Richie and Eddie felt weirdly like a wounded animal that needed to lash out.

As a teenager, he’d set it aside. It wasn’t like any of his emotions had made sense at that age anyways. And then of course, he’d forgotten everything for 27 years until _surprise there’s an evil killer clowns, It’s real and you have to kill It._ So yeah, Eddie had never actually examined whatever that feeling he got around Richie was. He blinked once at himself in the mirror before deciding that he would continue to ignore whatever that feeling was for the time being. The deeper inner-workings of his emotions would have to wait until he’d filed for divorce and also, like, dealt with the cosmic fact that supernatural shit existed. All in all, way too many things to consider for nine in the morning. He splashed some water on his face and left the bathroom to grab that cup of coffee.

* * *

The rest of the day consisted of a long shopping trip involving groceries, cleaning supplies, and clothes for Eddie, since all he had was the handful he’d brought with him to Derry. At the end, Richie offered to drop by a furniture place to get a bed for the other room, but it was getting late and both of them were exhausted. They agreed to deal with it another time. After unloading everything into the house, Richie surprised Eddie by cooking dinner while he was in the shower. He’d wandered out of the bathroom, feeling much better after having bought the toiletries he’d been doing without since leaving New York, to find Richie stirring something that smelled delicious while humming to himself.

“Rich, what the fuck,” was the eloquent sentence that fell out of his mouth.

Richie spun around comically, grinning at Eddie.

“Spagheds! Come try this, it’s my specialty,” he said, holding out a wooden spoon that threatened to drip onto the kitchen tile.

Eddie approached and wrapped his mouth around the spoon dutifully. Richie’s eyes followed the movement closely, something dark flickering briefly behind his eyes before he reached up to adjust his glasses.

“ _Ow_ , fuck, hot,” Eddie cried, pulling back as the sauce burnt his tongue.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Richie said, eyes widening.

He grabbed a glass and filled it with water quickly, spoon forgotten on the counter. Eddie took the glass gratefully. Richie looked somewhere between amused and concerned as he turned back to the stove.

“Sorry about that,” he apologized again, “Can you grab the plates from that shelf? Thanks, doll,” Richie said, not even seeming to think before dropping the pet name.

Eddie felt the thing in his chest rear, but he chose to ignore it. He wanted to actually, like, eat dinner instead of argue with Richie. He could do that afterwards.

* * *

“Listen Rich,” Eddie starts as they’re clearing the table after dinner, “There’s no reason for us to be childish like last night. Your bed’s plenty big enough. If you’re so insistent I sleep in it, we might as well share,” Eddie tries to say it like it’s the most obvious suggestion in the world, like he hadn’t been working up to saying it all day. Like the very thought of it didn’t set something in him on fire.

_Why am I being weird about this, there’s no reason to be weird about this, sure I haven’t shared a bed with anyone in years, but we did this as kids, WHY AM I BEING WEIRD._

There was a surprisingly long moment of silence. Eddie braced himself for the barrage of jokes at his expense he was sure was coming. He peered over at Richie, who was drying the dishes Eddie handed to him. Richie looked like he was concentrating really hard on the plate his hands.

“Okay,” Richie finally says, quietly like he expects Eddie to take it back.

“Okay,” Eddie echoes, feeling something fragile in the words. Richie doesn’t jump away or resort to jokes and Eddie doesn’t bitch or push buttons. It feels like something else, a domesticity almost, a quiet _something_ being made there in front of the kitchen sink. Eddie doesn’t know what it is, thinks he might not be ready to yet.

“Have you seen the Sharknado sequels?” Richie asks as they finish up the dishes.

“They made _sequels_?”

“Ohhhhh Spaghetti Baby, get ready for a fuckin' ride,” Richie said, grinning at him before taking off for the living room, knowing Eddie would follow.

The thing about the Sharknado sequels, Eddie soon discovered, is that it’s just the same joke taken to new and ridiculous extremes over and over again. Eddie is sure that Richie and only Richie could enjoy these movies. After the fourth Sharknado movie, Eddie decided that he couldn’t melt another braincell by watching any more.

“Alright, enough terrible CGI sharks,” Eddie said, sitting up straight on the couch and stretching his arms over his head, “I’m gonna get ready for bed.”

Eddie stood up and glanced back to see Richie watching him openly for just a moment. Richie pushed his glasses up his nose when his eyes met Eddie’s, standing up quickly from the couch.

“Yeah, me too,” Richie said, fidgeting slightly. Eddie thought he looked a little jumpy, like he was waiting for a rug to be pulled out from under him.

“Right,” Eddie said, turning away to head for the bathroom.

Teeth thoroughly brushed, Eddie exited the guest bathroom and wandered down the short hall to Richie’s bedroom. Richie was in there, already changed into a pair of soft sweatpants and another threadbare t-shirt. Eddie leaned against the door frame, feeling a little silly but unwilling to enter the bedroom before Richie explicitly invited him in. Richie was turned away from him, throwing clothes into hamper. He turned slightly, pausing when he spotted Eddie hovering just outside the door.

“What are you, a vampire?” He cracked, the nervous fidgeting sliding under Richie’s usual joking veneer. He turned to flop down gracelessly on the bed, turning his head to bare his neck.

“Bite me, Eddie baby, give me some of that sweet, sweet immortality,” he grinned at Eddie, batting his eyes and arching his back.

Eddie rolled his eyes with such a force that they might leave his skull. He walked over to the bed, nudging Richie from his ridiculous pose in the middle of the bed.

“Shove over, Twilight, or I might actually bite you,” he grumbled, not fully thinking through the words coming out of his mouth. Richie looked delighted, waggling his eyebrows.

“Getting kinky already? And here we are sleeping together for the very first time,” He put on a strange sort of southern belle voice, fluttering his lashes and staying, frustratingly, still posed in the middle of the bed.

Eddie gave up convincing him to move and collapsed onto the bed half on top of Richie who let out a quiet “oof”.

“It isn’t really, though,” Eddie mused quietly as Richie wriggled out from under him into the reasonable position he should have been in anyway.

“Wuh?” Richie managed, glasses skewed in a way that gave him a cartoon-esque vibe.

“I mean, when we were kids,” Eddie continued, realizing what he had almost implied, “and you used to climb in my window at night when my mom put me on lockdown.”

Eddie smiled a little, continuing.

“You would climb the drain pipe with a backpack full of junk food and comic books, and we’d eat it all and crash in my little twin bed. Even when we both got too big to fit in it, you’d say you were too tired to climb down the pipe and walk home so we’d shove ourselves into that tiny bed.”

The memory made Eddie’s smile a little watery. It had meant so much to him as a teenager, that Richie would make the effort to hang out with him even when his mom did everything in her power to keep them apart. He glanced over at Richie to see him staring straight ahead, a smile on his face and… his ears and neck a vibrant red. It had been awhile since he’d seen Richie blush, and he wondered what brought this on.

“Do you not remember?” Eddie chanced, feeling strangely heartbroken at the idea that Richie didn’t have the same fond memories of sharing Eddie’s space so much, so intimately.

“No, no, of course I remember,” Richie said quickly, looking so sincere for a moment that Eddie wasn’t sure he remembered how to breathe. The look was quickly wiped away by tell-tale face of an incoming Richie Tozier classic joke. “That was how I tricked you into letting me into your house so I could fuck your mother,” he finished with a shit-eating grin.

“You’re a fucking child,” Eddie spit out, grabbing the pillow from behind him and slamming it into Richie’s face.

“Ah, yes, as supposed to the upmost maturity demonstrated by starting a pillow fight,” Richie deadpanned, muffled slightly by the pillow.

“Asshole,” Eddie said, like a perfectly reasonable adult. Richie snorted and removed the pillow from his face.

“Those were good nights,” Richie said quietly, glancing up at Eddie a little nervously. Eddie just smiled back wistfully.

“They really were,” he replied, gazing down at Richie reclined against the pillows. Eddie could almost see teenage Richie for a moment, all soft crooked grin and too-big glasses. Richie adjusted his adult glasses, ones that fit his face so that they really didn’t _need_ to be adjusted, and clasped his hands together loudly.

“Alright, enough old man sappy hour,” Richie said, breaking the reminiscent moment, “I gotta go to sleep.”

Richie pulled back the blanket and slid under it; Eddie did the same. Reaching up to turn off the bedside lamp, Richie mumbled something that Eddie had forgotten he had said every night they’d fallen asleep next to each other in Eddie’s twin bed.

“G’night, Eddie-my-love,” Richie said.

Whatever was in Eddie’s chest immediately threw the idea of sleep out the window.

That night Eddie lied awake, struck by the unsettling feeling that a part of himself had been stripped back. That his soul was almost naked there in the dark listening to Richie’s soft snores. Turning his head to face him, Eddie felt a sudden desperate urge to wrap himself around the man lying next to him; to press himself so deeply into his body that they become a single unit, and he would never have to fear losing him ever again. He felt almost sick with it, this longing so raw and almost feral that his muscles were tensed in order to stop himself.

Richie shifted in his sleep suddenly, snuffling quietly and then sighing. Eddie found it unbelievably adorable, causing the desire in this chest to flare to almost violent levels. Giving up his barely maintained control, Eddie rolled onto his side to fully face Richie’s sleeping form. Oh so carefully, Eddie reached out and ran his fingers gently through Richie’s dark curls. Richie shifted again, not fully waking up but humming happily in his sleep. Eddie thought his chest might just _fucking burst_ with this strange new feral impulse. He wanted to burrow into this man’s chest, slip under his skin and make a home there; devour him entirely to become whole. The thoughts were so disjointed, breaking apart as soon as they occurred to him, that Eddie had the distinct notion that he was actually going crazy. Maybe something with the clown and his memories had fundamentally broken part of his brain.

His hand stilled in Richie’s hair as he grappled with the apparent loss of his own sanity. Richie, somewhere between sleeping and waking, sighed and ducked his head closer to Eddie, pressing up against his hand. Eddie resumed running his fingers through Richie’s hair, gob smacked again with the feeling that tried to crawl out of his rib cage, thrashing against it like a wounded animal. It overwhelmed him for just a moment, tears welling in his eyes that dissipated before they could fall.

Whatever this feral feeling was, it didn’t need him to cry. It required something else entirely; it was hungry. Eddie just didn’t know for _what._

He must’ve fallen asleep like that, fingers still tangled in Richie’s curls, because he woke up to his hand being displaced. Blinking his eyes open, he discovered a still sleep-soft Richie less than a foot away, fingers wrapped around Eddie’s wrist curiously.

“’Morning, Eddie Spaghetti,” he said in a rougher, lower voice than Eddie had ever heard him use. Eddie lost the power of speech entirely; in his defense, Richie first thing in the morning was just a lot to take in.

“Did you… fall asleep with your hand in my hair?” Richie asked, pulling Eddie’s wrist out in front of him to examine his hand as though it might give him the answer.

“Uh,” Eddie managed, not entirely sure whether he had or not.

“It’s okay,” Richie said quickly, “I mean it felt nice, you know, to have someone play with my hair,” he finished with a tentative and almost shy smile.

_What the hap is fuckening,_ was all Eddie’s brain managed to supply him with. Instead of speaking, he returned Richie’s smile and ran his hand through Richie’s hair once more before pulling away.

“I can make breakfast,” he offered. Richie grinned and gestured for him to lead the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was too impatient to wait any longer to post the next chapter. Honestly this and the last one could've been one chapter but I felt the need to separate by song. I will probably do the same with the next two chapters. 
> 
> Seriously though, please please listen to Careful You. It for real feels like that sinking feeling in your chest when you realize you're in deeper with someone that you thought and just how vulnerable your emotions are to them. Particularly the scenes where Eddie is looking in the mirror and when he's lying in bed. *overly aggressive italian chef hands* IT'S ABOUT THE REPRESSED YEARNING


	3. Can We Always Be This Close?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January  
> This is our place, we make the rules  
> And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear  
> Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?
> 
> Can I go where you go?  
> Can we always be this close forever and ever?  
> And ah, take me out, and take me home  
> You're my, my, my, my lover
> 
> We could let our friends crash in the living room  
> This is our place, we make the call
> 
> My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue  
> All's well that ends well to end up with you  
> Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover  
> And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me  
> And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover”
> 
> -Lover by Taylor Swift

Once Eddie actually filed for divorce and quit his job, the days went much faster. Instead of the minute-by-minute dragging of complete uncertainty, days started becoming weeks and waking up to see Richie’s sleep-softened face on the pillow next to his became normal. Well, maybe not _normal_ , but something that didn’t shake Eddie apart completely, something he could breathe through.

Eddie began undertaking the monumental task of becoming a fully-realized person. He had spent 27 years molded into what his mom had wanted him to be and then holding that form tightly in the face of his wife. Everything he’d done had been the safe, sensible choice with no chosen joy for himself, only what he stumbled into by accident. On his very first visit to his new therapist, less than a week after the first time he slept in Richie’s bed, she had encouraged him to seek out things that he truly enjoyed. It didn’t have to be anything big or life-altering, he didn’t need to seek out his higher calling or anything, just little things that brought him happiness. And so Eddie had a List, not a spreadsheet or anything overly organized, just a list in the note app in his phone of things he enjoyed.

One afternoon on a whim, Eddie baked a batch of cookies from ingredients he found in Richie’s cupboard and baking quickly made its way onto The List. Something about creating a physical thing combined with choosing to make something completely unnecessary only for the sake of tasting something sweet gave Eddie a deep sense of freedom. It’s something he wouldn’t have wasted his time with before. He would have obsessed over the health aspects and his own made-up allergies. Baking became his reminder that he was his own new person, as well as something to disrupt anxiety cycles and moments of post-traumatic stress with which he occasionally struggled.

Of course he couldn’t tell his therapist the entire truth of what had happened to him without being diagnosed with something he didn’t actually have. His story of his Munchausen-by-proxy mother, repressing memories from his teenage years, suddenly seeing all his childhood friends, and being stabbed in the face by an escaped childhood tormentor had actually been plenty enough to get him a PTSD diagnosis and weekly recommended sessions. Even without the alien killer clown, Eddie’s life had been pretty fucked up, as it turns out.

It was one of these thought spirals, well past midnight, that sent him into the kitchen that night. He’d had a new and fairly complicated recipe saved on his phone for just such an occasion, and he planned to make the most of it. In part of his journey to discovering things about himself, Eddie had begun seeking out new music to listen to while he baked. He scrolled through spotify to find a random playlist, searching “baking” to see a playlist literally titled “mood: stress baking at 2 AM”. Eddie shrugged and clicked the playlist, popping in his earbuds as he gathered up his ingredients. The most complicated part of the recipe involved getting the right yeast ratio and correct proving time, so Eddie sunk himself completely into the process, only half-listening to the new music in his ears.

With the dough set to prove for twenty minutes, Eddie rinsed the flour off his hands. The playlist flipped to a new song with a slow beat and romantic almost-vintage feel. Eddie swayed to it for a moment, letting the music wash over him. Through his ear buds he heard the sound of something moving behind him and turned to see Richie stumbling out of the bedroom, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. Eddie pulled out one ear bud and let it dangle against his chest.

“Oh hey Rich, did I wake you up?” Eddie asked, concerned. He always tried to be as quiet as possibly during his insomnia-fueled baking sprees. Richie just shook his head.

“Nah, I just… clown dream,” he muttered looking vaguely embarrassed. Eddie understood immediately.

“Me, too,” he replied quietly. Richie nodded and wandered closer.

Despite the crease in between his eyebrows, Richie looked almost unbearably soft. His faded blue sweat pants sat low on his hips, and his threadbare white t-shirt did little to actually cover Richie’s chest. Between his broad shoulders stretching the shirt too tight and the loose v neck that exposed a fair amount of chest hair, Richie was functionally shirtless in Eddie’s eyes. He kept walking closer, not stopping at a regular conversational distance. Eddie swallowed back whatever was burning inside his chest.

“Whatcha listening to?” he asked, and Eddie realized he was still swaying a little.

Richie picked up the loose earbud and popped it in, standing almost chest-to-chest with Eddie, who suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe properly. Richie listened for a moment and then snorted indelicately.

“Didn’t realize your midlife crisis would include a Taylor Swift phase, but sure, why not?” Richie cracked with a grin.

“It’s a random playlist, jackass,” Eddie countered, feeling a little defensive, “I’ve never heard this song before.”

“No, no, I’m not disparaging Tswift,” Richie said with laughter in his voice, “I just wouldn’t have taken you for that type.”

Richie began to sway the same way that Eddie had been, placing his hands on Eddie’s shoulders to make him move in time with him. Eddie was about to roll his eyes and turn away when Richie suddenly looped his arm around Eddie’s waist and took his left hand into his own. Richie hummed the chorus, eyes sparkling with mirth down at Eddie as he led them in a proper slow dance.

Eddie would have taken the whole moment as a joke at his expense if Richie hadn’t then pulled him into his chest. Although a little wary of what Richie would do next, Eddie went willingly. He felt Richie press his face into his hair and heard him take a deep breath.

_Oh._

A realization dawned on Eddie that this wasn’t a joke, hadn’t really been one the whole time. Richie was doing what Eddie always felt compelled to do after a dream or anxiety fit featuring Clown Fuckery but never felt comfortable doing. The first thing he craved was proof that he was alive, that his memories were real, that things had really changed and he wasn’t stuck in his dead-end life of 27 years. He wanted to pull Richie close just as Richie was doing to him now; to feel his heartbeat and breathe him in until the shaky uncertainty died down to a low hum.

When he felt that way, he behaved like a strange touch-starved cat more often than not. Uncertain of how to ask for physical affection, he would simply worm his way as close to Richie as possible and wait for his touch. Richie had always been better as initiating touch than Eddie; just being within arm’s reach of him usually resulted in Richie dropping an arm over his shoulder or patting him on the back. Eddie never knew how his touch would be received, and it made him too nervous to reach out himself. So he’d get closer and closer until Richie touched him, and Richie would just smile satisfactorily at him and return to whatever he was doing.

And here was Richie, pulling him into his arms and swaying him to a song about lovers without seemingly a second thought. Eddie tucked his face into Richie’s neck, trying to communicate that he understood. He knew the desire to know that someone was physically there and alive and _cared._ They kept swaying, Eddie holding Richie just a little tighter through the bridge. Richie let out a quiet, breathy laugh when Swift crooned the line: “And you’ll save all your dirtiest jokes for me.”

A realization hit Eddie like a truck; that this moment of slow-dancing barefoot in a kitchen while sharing head phones and the smell of baking surrounding them was easily the most romantic thing he’d ever experienced. All those years of marriage with Myra and it had never once occurred to him to do anything like this. But now that he’d had a taste, even if it was just a moment of comfort with a friend, Eddie found he _wanted_ this. It was something with that hunger in his chest, it felt satisfied and craved more at the same time. Eddie wondered if it was something about connection or touch or maybe…

_Maybe…_

_Richie?_

He wanted to press his face even deeper into Richie’s neck, maybe press his mouth to his Adams apple. To feel his heartbeat, proof that Richie was still alive, through his lips. Eddie felt thrown by that revelation, that deep _want_ that was still there, had maybe always been there, becoming too loud and strong for him to push it down. If Richie hadn’t been holding him so tightly, Eddie might have sunk to the floor under the weight of how much he _wanted._ Like if he could crawl inside this man’s skin then and only then could he be whole.

But before Eddie could delve deeper into untangling whatever was happening with his psyche, the song ended. Richie smoothed his hand over Eddie’s back as they stopped swaying. Eddie wanted to say something, like he could mark the moment with the right words and it could mean something. He began to pull away, a little nervous to see Richie’s face when suddenly he glanced past Richie’s shoulder to spot the bowl of dough spilling over the side of the container.

“Oh shit,” Eddie muttered, wrenching himself out of Richie’s arms to poke at the dough, “Shit, I think I used the wrong kind of yeast.”

“Man, what kind of flubber -ass bread experiments have you been doing in my kitchen?” Richie said with a laugh, peering over his shoulder.

“Can you hand me a bigger bowl?” Eddie asked in a frenzy, trying to keep the growing dough from spilling over the countertop.

“Aye, aye, Dr. K!” Richie said cheerily, the British guy threatening to make an appearance.

Eddie rolled his eyes and took the bowl from Richie, attempting to transfer the dough without incident. Richie hopped up to sit on the counter a foot away and put on his best sports announcer voice.

“Eddie Kaspbrak going for the elusive pass here from bowl to bowl, let’s see if he has what it takes folks. He’s lining up the shot, he shoots, _he scores!_ And the crowd goes wild!” Richie made his best crowd noise as Eddie held back a laugh.

The rest of the baking went more or less the same way. Richie sat on the counter and provided narration and jokes while Eddie hid his delight behind fond eyerolls. It was rapidly approaching four in the morning when Eddie finally pulled his slightly uneven but perfectly baked masterpiece from the oven. He and Richie both took a small piece, surrounded as they were by the delicious smell, but agreed to wait until the next morning to fully enjoy the fruits of Eddie’s labor. Richie held out a hand, eyes soft in the warm light of the kitchen, and Eddie took it tentatively. Leading him back to the bedroom they had now shared for nearly two weeks, Eddie realized that neither of them had brought up purchasing another bed since the first night they slept next to each other.

Lying next to Richie with the smell of freshly baked bread still lingering in the air, Eddie thought of the feeling of Richie’s arms around him in the kitchen. To feel safe, to feel _held,_ hadn’t been a part of Eddie’s life for 27 years, and Eddie would be damned if he’d let days go past without that now. Deciding to conquer his anxiety over initiating touch, he rolled onto his side and gently draped an arm around Richie’s chest. Richie let out a quiet sigh, settling back into Eddie’s embrace like he’d been waiting for it his whole life. Eddie felt something tight in his soul unwind, and he pressed his face into the nape of Richie’s neck to breathe him in properly. As Eddie drifted quickly off to sleep, he had a passing thought that made him smile sleepily against Richie’s T-shirt.

_I should put touching Richie on The List of things I like._

When Eddie woke up fully tangled around Richie to find him already awake and tracing absent patterns on Eddie’s hand, he had the same thought.

Eddie shifted a little and muttered a quiet “good morning” into Richie’s shoulder blade. Richie stopped tracing his finger over Eddie’s hands and froze like he’d been caught doing something wrong. Eddie frowned into the barely-existing t-shirt.

“Why’d you stop? Felt nice,” he mumbled, pressing his forehead firmly to the exposed skin between Richie’s neck and shoulder.

Richie huffed out a quiet laugh and resumed trailing his fingers over Eddie’s arm in a way that threatened to give him goosebumps. After a few more quiet moments, Eddie’s brain started to fully wake up and realized that he was spooning an adult man who was playing with his hands like a lovesick teenager. He was even half-hard and hoping that the blanket bunched between them would be enough to keep Richie from noticing.

“Do you want coffee? I think I’m gonna make some,” Eddie asked, pulling himself away from Richie’s enticing warmth.

“Hm? Oh yeah sure,” Richie said, rolling onto his back to look at Eddie.

Richie’s face was more open and relaxed than Eddie thought he’d ever seen it. His eyes were soft with sleep and Eddie could feel them tracing over his face, like Richie wanted to drink in everything about him. It squeezed around the thing in Eddie’s chest, the beast threatening to go feral again. He grabbed his phone and more or less fled to the kitchen before he let himself be given over fully.

As he waited on the coffee machine to be done, Eddie’s eyes wandered over to the place where some of the dough from the night before had spilled onto the counter. Eddie smiled to himself as he remembered the moments before when he was wrapped up in Richie’s arms. Pulling out his phone, he tried not to examine it too much as he added a new entry to The List:

_Touching Richie._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen this chapter is so self-indulgent but it is what they deserve. Richie and Eddie have been through enough, let them have late-night baking and slow dancing to Taylor Swift and cuddling. Besides, honestly, everything is so bad right now, I really really just needed to write the fluffiest fluff I could manage.
> 
> Please, please give me your feedback, either here or on my tumblr at stilllivingroots, I love hearing from y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> *shows up to fandom a year late with iced coffee and a domestic fix-it fic*
> 
> So this is my first time writing for the IT fandom and I'm super excited. I rewatched chapters 1&2 bc its spooky season and this fic just fell out of me as I rediscovered my love of Repressed Adult Reddie. Please, please let me know what you think! You can also come talk to me on my fic writing/hozier worship tumblr at stilllivingroots (with three "l"s)
> 
> Each chapter of this fic will have a song (maybe a couple) to go with it, but largely the vibe of this fic is very much As It Was and the concept of returning to someone after a very long time and finding that comfortable, long-standing love is still there.


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